Integrating critical thinking and problem solving skills in the teaching of technical courses: The narrative of a Malaysian private university

This paper seeks to discuss the teaching approaches employed by the lecturers at a private university in integrating one of the soft skills, which is critical thinking and problem solving skills in their teaching of technical courses. In addition, this paper also addresses lecturers' and students' perceptions on the integration of these skills in the teaching and learning of technical courses in order to find out whether there is any significant difference in their perceptions. The methods used to obtain the data were survey questionnaires and interviews. The results indicate that critical thinking and problem solving skills is placed as most important soft skills by the lecturers and the final year students and is being integrated in the teaching by employing problem-based learning approach, project oriented problem-based approach and project-based approach. The results also reveal that there is no congruence between the lecturers and students in the way they perceived the integration of critical thinking and problem solving skills in the teaching of technical courses. The results are then further discussed.